ELIZABETH — The excited look of a first-time state qualifier is hard to forget. Evergreen’s Jake Kay had that look.

After a shoulder injury sidelined Kay for the last part of his freshman year, the sophomore was determined to make a run at state and trounced his 103-pound bracket at the 4A Region 1 wrestling tournament on Feb. 11-12 at Elizabeth High School to head to state in style.

National Signing Day was Feb. 2, but inclement weather delayed Evergreen High School from holding its signing ceremony until Feb. 9. But it couldn’t keep four student-athletes from making their future a reality. The following is a list of those four student-athletes and why they chose the school that they did. Stephen Swofford contributed to this report.— Michael Hicks, Sports Editor

Michael Stills has resigned as executive director of the Evergreen Audubon Nature Center after the board of directors downsized the position from three-quarters time to half-time.

Evergreen Audubon has operated a nature center in the warming hut on Evergreen Lake from April through November for the last three years.

Stills said he couldn't afford to take a salary cut from $37,000 to $24,000, because he has a family to support. The board is advertising on the website for a new director. Stills resigned at the end of the year to seek another job.

A former Californian now living in Evergreen wants to introduce area residents to his favorite racket sport: pickleball. The sport is a cross among tennis, badminton and paddleball.

As with tennis, the game is played on a hard court divided into sides by a net, 2 inches lower than a tennis net. But the court is much smaller, with a baseline only 22 feet from the net, meaning the play doesn't require as much stamina and running as tennis.

Players use wooden paddles and plastic wiffle balls. The serve is underhanded.

When fourth-grader Kayla Wolins, 9, heard that Frito-Lay was retiring its biodegradable Sun Chips bags, she was so outraged she wrote a letter to the company protesting the move. Frito-Lay sent a letter back saying it was trying to figure out a way to make biodegradable bags less noisy.

Customers had complained that the biodegradables made too much noise and the company announced in October it would trash the old bags and bring back the regular plastic ones (except for the original plain flavor).

The Evergreen Park and Recreation District board has scheduled three closed-door evening sessions this week to conduct in-person interviews with four candidates for the job of park district executive director.

The first of 10 potential interview sessions took place Feb. 9. The first five candidates all are from in the state, said Kit Darrow, board president. The fact that they are all from Colorado was a matter of coincidence and not design, Darrow said.